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Rock Hudson was arguably the most famous man on the planet. According to his biographer Mark Griffin, he was everybody\u2019s type. \u201cNot only did women say Rock was the man they wanted to marry,\u201d says Griffin. \u201cMany men said he was the man they\u2019d like to be.\u201d The granite facade, the chiselled jawline, the inviting dimple in the chin: Rock Hudson was the very definition of heterosexual American masculinity.<\/p>\n
On the outside. The inside story \u2013 as all the world now knows \u2013 was rather different.<\/p>\n
Rock Hudson, aka Roy Fitzgerald, was a heavily closeted gay man who battled for decades to hide his true sexuality from an adoring public, abetted by the collusion of several film studios.<\/p>\n
The reason was simple: if the truth had come out it would have been the end of his career.<\/p>\n
As a new documentary, All That Heaven Allowed reveals, Roy had wanted to be an actor for as long as he could remember. \u201cBut I could never say that when I was growing up,\u201d he said in an interview, \u201cbecause that was cissy stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n
When he asked his stepfather if he could have drama lessons, he was asked why. \u201cSo I told him I wanted to be an actor and… crack! He hit me.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he was undeterred. After a spell in the navy he went to stay with a contact in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong> Rock Hudson’s deathbed regrets over long-lost son detailed<\/strong><\/p>\n When he met powerful agent Henry Willson at a party his fortunes suddenly took an upswing. Willson could see that the 6ft 4in hunk he renamed Rock Hudson would look good on screen and he was happy to help him.<\/p>\n He sent his protege to speech classes to lower his voice, and encouraged him to smoke. He was shown how to slick back his hair and what to wear. There was to be no trace of effeminacy. In short, this was an exercise in how to be heterosexual.<\/p>\n Away from the public gaze, Rock enjoyed a dizzying succession of young, male lovers at a time when his career initially consisted of cheap action movies. For his part, Rock was intent on bringing back some much-needed big screen glamour, something he finally achieved with Jane Wyman in the superior weepie Magnificent Obsession in 1954.<\/p>\n That was followed the next year by All That Heaven Allows, again opposite Wyman. The films were big hits but Rock was under pressure on another front. He was approaching his 30th birthday. Why, his fans wanted to know, wasn\u2019t he yet married?<\/p>\n Svengali Willson had the solution \u2013 and she was sitting right there in his outer office. Phyllis Gates was Willson\u2019s secretary, pretty enough in a homespun way, and happy enough to start romancing Rock at her boss\u2019s behest. They married just eight days before Rock turned 30 in November 1955. Given she worked for Rock\u2019s agent, her later claim that she didn\u2019t know her husband was gay stretches credulity to breaking point.<\/p>\n The marriage lasted three years.<\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> Indeed, Robert Hofler, author of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, wrote: \u201cThose who knew Phyllis say she was a lesbian who had become addicted to being the wife of a star and didn\u2019t want a divorce. In a way, she was just being pragmatic: she feared that Rock\u2019s exposure would ruin his fame which was, in turn, her gravy train.\u201d<\/p>\n This was something she disputed in a subsequent TV interview with Larry King.<\/p>\n But she never remarried, dying of lung cancer, aged 80, in 2006.<\/p>\n By 1959, the year after the divorce, Rock Hudson had become Hollywood\u2019s most popular male star courtesy of films like Giant alongside Elizabeth Taylor (who became a life-long friend) and James Dean (also said to be a closet homosexual). Dean, who had a prickly relationship with Rock, died in a car accident before the movie was completed. Universal Studios, meanwhile, was slowly realising it had a much subtler actor on their hands than they\u2019d guessed.<\/p>\n Here was someone who displayed his light comedy chops in the three films he made with Doris Day \u2013 1959\u2019s Pillow Talk perhaps being the most enduring. As to what view Doris held of Rock\u2019s true sexuality, she was too naive \u2013 or more likely too clever \u2013 to ever let on.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew absolutely nothing about his private life,\u201d she says in the documentary, \u201cand, if I did, I certainly wouldn\u2019t discuss it. I can\u2019t tell you one thing about him except that he was a very nice man who became a very dear friend.\u201d<\/p>\n But the scandal sheets were much more forthcoming with their innuendo and speculation. The doggedly devious Willson had no wish to sacrifice the goose that continued to lay golden eggs and needed a diversionary tactic to scotch an expose by Confidential magazine about Rock\u2019s life away from the cameras. So, he took the decision to throw another of his gay clients \u2013 blond, blue-eyed Tab Hunter \u2013 under the bus with the revelation he\u2019d been arrested at what was euphemistically called an \u201call-male pyjama party\u201d.<\/p>\n
James Stewart was ‘so upset’ with Rock Hudson they never spoke again[NEWS] <\/strong>
Hollywood Netflix: Is Roy Fitzgerald based on a real person?[INSIGHT] <\/strong>
The Last Sunset: Kirk Douglas ‘went berserk’ on classic movie set[NEWS] <\/strong><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/36\/590x\/secondary\/5025454.jpg?r=1697900581995\")
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